


As Night Falls

by CandyAdley



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Confident Neville Longbottom, Hogwarts Fifth Year, M/M, Minster for Magic Lucius Malfoy, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Powerful Harry, Sane Tom Riddle
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-16
Updated: 2019-08-16
Packaged: 2020-09-02 07:16:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20272063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CandyAdley/pseuds/CandyAdley
Summary: Harry Potter returns for another year at Hogwarts, and seeing the awful things that have happened the previous years, he has hopes this year will be a change of pace. However all his plans of an easy going year are foiled by the a few facts. First of all there is a new minister, and he'd like to change a few things. Secondly, Voldemort is out there, somewhere. And- Wait, who is the new DADA professor?(This will be my first actual longer than 1 chapter fanfic so please don't be too harsh & I am not an English native nor is it my first language so small mistakes are to be expected)





	As Night Falls

It was the start of the fifth year of Hogwarts for Harry Potter and before they’d even started the sorting of the new first years - no before Harry boarded the train, he knew it was going to be awful. His stay at the Dursley’s had been horrendous to say the least, and then to make it worse, he had not received a single letter from his so called best friends in the first two weeks. At first he debated the thought that it was another Dobby situation, but before that theory proved to be true he received a letter from Hermione on the day that marked two weeks after they had last met. It’s content was short and straight to the point. 

‘Not safe, with Snuffles and redheads, no contact, Dumbledore’ It read in cursive that Harry more than recognised from all of the times he had seen it inside the boarders of his almost finished essays prompting him to ‘explain further’ and ‘look for another word because that word didn’t make sense’. To come back to the content of the short letter. At first he had been furious, before becoming sad by the realisation that he was to stay at the Dursley’s. The talk some of the order members had given the Dursley’s at Kings Cross had not helped and only made their neglect worse. Not that Harry was able to tell that to anybody. It did hurt a bit that Harry wasn’t allowed to come and see Sirius.

Harry breathed out a slow breath onto the glass through which he saw the station that he had come to associate with freedom from the Dursley’s. Faces he recognised loitering on the platform with people who they resembled. Some more than others. His eyes unfocused after mere minutes of watching the crowd of people, his mind left wandering. 

A click was heard making Harry swiftly jerk his head towards the opening of the compartment in which he was currently residing. 

“Can I come in? The Wrackspurts have been pestering me to come to this compartment.” The blond girl said her eyes unseeing but scarily focused at the same time. 

“Sure, come on in.” Harry answered his eyes curiously roaming her strange dressing consisting of various items. On her neck hung a butterbeer cap necklace and her ears were adorned with radish earrings. Harry however had seen enough strange types in his short life as his mind immediately pulled up Trelawny who’s weirdness far outshone this girl. “I don’t think we’ve ever talked.” He added. 

“I’m Luna Lovegood, though many people refer to me as Loony.” 

“That’s not very nice, who calls you that.” Harry raised an eyebrow as he gazed upon the female sitting across from him. 

“Just some people in my year, mostly people in my house. But it’s just the Humdingers messing their mind up.”

“The what?”

“Blibbering Humdinger, they like to laugh at my earrings.” She explained whilst taking the seat opposite to Harry. Before Harry could ask any more questions there was another knock on the door. He’d been expecting Malfoy to show his face as usual but the door was opened by another person entirely.

“Hiya Harry, how was your summer holiday?” Neville said whilst closing the door behind him after seeing Harry crack a smile at his appearance in the doorframe. A brown leather bag slung across his back, and all together looking more confident. 

“The same as usual.” Harry brushed off “Have you met Luna before?” He added after seeing the inquisitive look in Neville’s eyes towards Luna. 

“Nice to meet you.” Luna said to Neville tilting her head slightly sideways.

“Nice to meet you too, don’t think I’ve seen you around much.” Neville answered without missing a beat before proceeding to sit down next to her. “Ah, by the way Harry, this summer I was busy in our greenhouse and my grandma came in with a new plant.” He pulled out a plant from the bag he had just put next to him. “It’s an anguisplant, very rare. It gained its name through the leaves that hiss. The only problem is, it quickly becomes lonely. Which is why it is often put into snake containers who gives the anguisplant somebody, or rather a snake, to converse with.” Neville looked away shyly “And I’ve always been a bit scared by snakes so then I thought of you.” His voice losing confidence a bit. “I know you are a Parseltongue and it won’t be very happy with me, so would you like to take care of it for me? Just tell me about interesting things it tells you, please.” 

Harry looked hesitantly at the plant in Neville’s hands. ‘Well’ Harry wondered ‘Could you call it a plant’. It looked like an almost dead plant. The leaves were turning brown towards their ends, and it was very small. Barely larger than some roses he tended to in the Dursley garden. However, he could not say no to the pleading eyes that looked at him. Accepting the plant and putting it in his own luggage which held an extended compartment (all credits for that feat go towards Gred and Forge). 

Just then the train started moving and the station gave way to lush green scenery. Luna was reading some paper called the quibbler and Neville was reading a book of which Harry could not discern the title, he did however think it must have something to do with plants since Neville was reading with a large smile on his face. Harry just looked at the scenery outside and was waiting for his other friends to barge in. 

“Have you seen Ron and Hermione.” Harry inquired Neville, breaking the comfortable silence from both boys and Luna stopped humming a soft melody.

“Probably in the prefect meeting.” Neville said as if it was the most normal thing in the world.

“Wait Ron is also a prefect?” Harry asked raising his brow. Hermione he could still understand, but Ron being the male fifth year prefect for Gryffindor shocked him slightly more than it should’ve. 

“You didn’t know? Oh, well, I only knew he is a prefect because my grandma told me she’d heard his parent brag about it on a party.” Was the answer Neville gave before going back to his book and Luna started humming again seemingly realising this was the end of the conversation. 

Harry wondered how much he had missed this summer due to his lack of correspondence. 

The door was pulled open once again around an hour later. 

“Harry!” Hermione said whilst rushing to give him a hug, Harry was however in no mood to accommodate her before receiving an apology for the fact that they didn’t send any letters. But he realised that this would have to wait till they got to Hogwarts. As Hermione unhanded him his eye fell upon Ron who was playing a bit too obviously with a prefect button on the right breast of his robe.

“Hi mate.” He said whilst smiling amicably. Harry would keep up his calm front for now but that didn’t mean he could not let out a slight irritation at the lack of contact that he had had. 

“Hi, I just heard that you became a prefect.” He said with a subtle snarky undertone that went right by Ron. 

“Oh yeah, it came as a complete surprise to me as well, my parents were so happy with me. Fred and George thought it had been a mistake and kept going on about the fact that they now had two brothers who had turned to the “sombre life of prefects”. Their words not mine.” He added the last bit after seeing Hermione shoot him a glare. Just then Ron noticed the other two people in the compartment. “What’s Loony Lovegood doing here?” He said, immediately regretting his words because Hermione hit him on the back of his head. 

“I’m sorry Luna, Ron doesn’t have much tact.” Hermione said. 

“Oi, I resent that.” Ron replied whilst rubbing the back of his head. Harry ignored what he said and Hermione introduced herself to Luna. 

“You missed a lot this summer, we wanted to tell you sooner but being new prefects we got the whole run down of what to do.” Hermione said. Harry almost wanted to roll his eyes. ‘Whose fault is that?’ But she apparently either didn’t see his glare or chose to ignore it. “The biggest thing being the new Minister-”

“Who is the git’s father, Lucius Malfoy.” Ron butted in, Hermione send him one look and he shot his hands up in defeat.

“In any case, he is suspected to be a Death Eater. However, he claimed he was under Imperious so he was cleared of all charges.” Hermione added. 

“Malfoy was being absolutely infuriating about it during the prefect meeting. ‘Oh my dad is now the new Minister for Magic.’” Ron said using a whiny voice for Draco Malfoy.

“They haven’t slandered you too much because of it Harry. The Wizarding Weekly I mean. They just had the first two weeks to do so before the new Minister was installed.” Neville piped up whilst closing his book and searching for Harry's eyes. ‘That at least something good’ noted Harry in his head. “In any case we’re getting close to the castle, we should really get changed.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading the first chapter!! I don't really know yet how often I'll update, but chapters will get longer.
> 
> Once again I am not a native so please spare me.


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